Thursday, 17 September 2015

19 January 2016 - Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, quite obviously simply does not understand the struggles and privations of the people who own the world. 62 billionaires might today own as much as half the world's population, 3.5 billion peasants, but will their God given position continue? It is among these peasants that most borrowers can be found - many of whom are reckless borrowers and must be punished for their sinful, evil ways. The super rich have relied absolutely for hundreds of years on loan-sharking to wring more from the poor. Unlike the USA's Janet Yelland, Mark Carney is blocking increases in Base Rate Rises - which in the UK alone would effortlessly gouge another £4 billion a year from poor to rich, for every 0.25% , quarter of a percent, increase. A two or three percent rise, back to "normal rates" will siphon £48 billion from sinful UK borrowers to saintly off-shore, tax-free lenders. In the USA these amounts are treble or quadruple.

Carney's communist actions must be resisted. Its time David Cameron sacked the pest. Low interest rates since 2010 have lured millions into borrowing to buy their humble homes, awful cars, cheap computers and low grade food - now they are in the trap - it must be sprung. By holy writ "the rich must get richer" and "the poor will always be with us".

In the best of times, before all this nonsense about independent central bankers, the Blessed Margaret Thatcher drove UK BASE rates up to 15.5% ! What bliss; what immense, effortless, risk free income for the world's super-cash-rich. Record UK unemployment made sure that the sweaty workers did not dare to demand wage rises. It is high time we found another Thatcher. Perhaps Yelland, whose instincts seem to be with the superior people, can be worked on. Sure - thousands of families will be made homeless and lose their pathetic assets, but that's the sort of large market force that makes speculating such fun - and so lucrative. Get rid of all that socialist crap and squeeze harder.

See you all at Davos.

********

17 SEPT 2015

Hi Rosie,

STOCK EXCHANGE COLLAPSE AFTER CHRISTMAS? - THE PRICE OF MONEY

You might ask - and I can only guess - if your Moody - Morgan
Stanley forecast of collapse assumes an interest base rate hike in December.

With (relatively poor) UK
borrowers, including most young couples and families, today owing £1.4 trillion
(to the rich) - every 0.25% increase gouges £3.7 billion from the poor to the
rich. Also, City folk love dramatic chaotic movements that they can bet on.
Steady markets are of no use to major players.

If rates go back to 5% - In the UK that’s £66.6 billion per annum, every
year, of effortless, risk free, highly inflationary (no matching productivity
and driving up every cost in the economy) extra funds flowing to The City (and a little
of it to us small savers). Ditto in America but x 5 times. It is little wonder
that the bankers' PR machines continuously pump out the trite self-serving
message "Interest Rates must return to normal" - and "straight
into our pockets".

Increasing interest to crippling levels - such as losing your home - is just the old gangster trap of loan sharking. No nation should do this. LOVEABLE LOANSHARKS

Rates haven't returned to "normal" in Japan -
or the US - or the UK. There are sound reasons to assume they never will again
- because the wealthy worldwide are flooded with cash which hunts second by
second for ultra safe havens with high returns for their (our) cash. There is $32 trillion (80 million good jobs) sitting unused in tax-havens.

However - the pressure from the super rich is very strong
and they might overcome economic common sense and achieve their hungrily
desired extra unearned incomes - bankrupting and making homeless thousands of
families. If so, if rates rise, some rich people will move money from the stock
markets into cash - reducing share prices. But - shares do represent real
business assets - and eventually prices adjust to reflect the reality. Look at
50 years of stock indices.

Letter to the Guardian - The media and some Bank of
England Committee members are puzzled by the, very welcome, current spate of
deflation (MPC members play down rate cut speculation - Guardian 26 March
2015). All economists know that UK inflation faithfully shadows Bank Base Rate,
lagging by 1 to 2 years (graph attached); which is the essential cause of
inflation. Unearned-Income inflation, or bad inflation, siphons risk and effort
free money from the poor to the rich, today at the rate per annum of about £3.7
billion per quarter percent (0.25%) of interest. Good inflation, wages led
inflation, rewards work and diminishes debt. The City need only increase Base
Rate to be flooded with extra effortless income, gouged from the poor; a year
later the usurers cunningly blame wages for higher inflation.

Monday, 14 September 2015

I am re-reading the excellent and accessible history book, The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich by the embedded US journalist William L Shirer. Throughout, Shirer refers to what Hitler wrote in Mien Kampf - so eventually I realized I have to read that most infamous book, which has been banned until recently. I've downloaded on Kindle for 99 pence, an English translation of Hitler's autobiographical Mien Kampf (My Struggle), and have so far read up to 1913, when he left Vienna and went to Munich.

A good summary of Hitler's teenage and early twenties in Vienna, where, after the deaths of his father when Hitler was 13, and his mother when he was just 15, when he was a beggar, sometimes laborer and a poorly paid artist; can be found on the History Place. Hitler wrote Mien Kampf during a period in jail, before he came to power. He doesn't (so far) say that his father was cruel to or beat him.

Contrary to WW2 propaganda, Hitler was quite a good artist, preferring architectural drawing, and he was a good graphic designer; he designed much of the deeply loathed and feared but very effective Nazi insignia. Also, as far as I have read, he wasn't part Jewish, or homosexual, and, contrary to a popular song, he had a normal physique.

My impressions so far are that this abandoned grim faced orphan was an able intelligent self-taught scholar of politics and history, for which he had a burning interest and had an intuitive grasp of the practical mechanics of political power. But I have to keep reminding myself that I am reading the words of one of the most notorious and cruelest mass murderers of all time, who was undoubtedly a psychopath (incapable of human empathy or pity) and was totally paranoid. His intuitive acute animal paranoid instincts saved his political career and his life many times. "Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you." I also bear in mind that he committed suicide when his mad version of reality, the Aryan super-race, collapsed in Berlin in 1945.

Hitler says that his parents were not antisemitic and that in Vienna he had to overcome his family inculcated natural liberalism to see the truth of The Jewish Problem. Antisemitism was however fashionable among the middle classes in Vienna, so in adopting it, Hitler was following the herd. He was equally critical of and expressed hate for The Hapsburg or Habsburg royal family, Roman Catholics, wavering Germans resident in Vienna, Slavs (Russian speakers), Journalists and most other religions, races, groups and movements. He basically hated everyone - but was wise enough in his rise to power to hide his loathing and to lie to all such groups - until he had the power to subdue or slaughter them.

It seems to me that after his parents died, Hitler went through typical teenage emotions concerning the world around him (a particularly poor and grim world in his case) and he developed deep contempt for the type of political hypocrisy that most societies did and do always manifest. Vienna was particularly turbulent and unstable before and after World War One, with a great mixture of races and religions - including a large population of "true" but not dominant expatriate Germans, with whom Hitler identified.

Hitler's favorite Opera
Wagner's Ring Cycle

I think Hitler suffered from arrested development, stuck with the emotional age and angst of a ten to fifteen year old - from which he never matured. This, I think, was the source of all his childish dreams of Teutonic power and Aryan superiority - steeped in north European fairy tale legends, such as Wagner adapted for the Ring Cycle; and Friedrich Nietzsche adopted for his fantastical Superman philosophy. I guess young Adolf Hitler escaped from the grinding poverty of a lonely street beggar into such myths - which, using his great powers of oratory, he later sold to defeated Germany after the humiliation of the First World War.

He writes in Mien Kampf of The Jewish Problem, eventually seeing subversive Jewish agents everywhere and in everything - particularly influencing the powerful Austrian Social Democratic Party. I am sure he fixated on the Jews because - as an abused child cast into the streets to survive or die of hunger - and with his undoubted political instinct - he knew that Jews were less protected by law than all other groups; and therefore could be bullied with impunity. They could be singled out and bullied even by a powerless hungry lonely Austrian-German street urchin.

Hitler might just have easily looked and found Catholics, or Protestants, or Muslims, or Freemasons, or Aristocrats, or Generals, or Papists, or even Women, secretly pulling the hypocritical strings of power in the multitude of organisations of the dying Austrian Empire. But none could be so easily identified vilified and bullied by a 14 year old hate filled lad, than the Jews. After all - Jews had been persecuted across Europe for two-thousand years. This psychopathic youth was just following the crowd and his elders and betters.

I am surprised to learn from William Shirer that when in power Hitler replaced all Bibles with Mien Kampf - a great tactic for booksellers - and vowed to replace all religions with German pagan legendary magical mythology. He really did not ever grow up - and he hated all religions, slaughtering thousands of Christian clerics, and hated democracies just as much as he hated Jews. But, as I've said, the Jews were the weakest and most vulnerable and so attracted deranged vengeful bullies, like Adolf.

More Later.

LATER... 16 September 2015. Hitler in Munich & thoughts on the Eastern Front.

Great chunks of Mien Kampf repeatedly detail the machinations of the numerous political groups in Austria, in Germany and across Europe. Hitler does reveal a remarkable grasp of the political scene and players. He strongly expresses his views about the wrong strategies adopted by powerful groups, in the run up to World War One 1914-18. He cleaves to the ideas of the Survival of the Fittest - by which he means the most psychopathic warriors, not the kindest or most clever. He has no concept of love, which he dismisses as weakness - foreshadowing his recruitment and promotion of equally mentally ill Ministers and Officials to organize the war machine and Holocaust. It is the most stark and terrifying example of the in-patients running the asylum.

I need to keep in mind that Hitler wrote Mien Kampf after 1918 - and so had the benefit of hindsight, but wrote it while he was imprisoned, before having any power. I guess that many insightful prophetic paragraphs were inserted later, again with the benefit of hindsight, as Hitler was an artful spin-doctor. Nevertheless, the book demonstrates his solo quest from teenage and his powerful one-track mind, dedicated to glorifying the German Master Race. He really did believe in fairies - or their evil counterparts.

I have added to my reading - Churchill's own histories of those times - and the marginally less flattering UK newsreels of Churchill's leadership during World War Two (Churchill also held significant offices in World War One); together with an academic paper, Ideologies and Mass Violence - The Justificatory Mechanics of Deadly Atrocities - by Jonathan Leader Maynard, University College, University of Oxford, July 2014, which focuses as case studies on the Nazis, Stalinists and the Allied bombing of civilians in World War Two. Hitler's ideology drives the behavior of the Nazi's.

I have also been reading about the Eastern Front - the long and atrocious war of 1940-45 between Hitler and Stalin. They were two madmen who were both willing to sacrifice millions of their own people - and to directly kill millions more of their own people - to determinedly prove the rightness of their crazed ideologies and insane egos. This mainland Europe ground war, in which Britain and America supported Russia with money and arms but not with troops on the ground, killed 30 million people and is blamed for millions more deaths after the conflict, due to starvation from the Scorched Earth Policies used by both armies. The war and aftermath rendered 50 million people homeless. These terrible battles ended only when Russian troops entered Berlin in 1945 - and Hitler took poison and shot himself.

Britain, on its knees after the retreat from Dunkirk in 1940, owes its survival to Hitler invading his supposed ally Russia, in which he imagined easy victory within a few months, and the Russian's stubborn resistance in the face of Germany's overwhelming numbers and high-tech tanks.

The Eastern Front is the most destructive war in all history. Why do we humans en-masse invest our personal individual energies in raving lunatics, without which investment they would be powerless? I think it is because they offer certainty in an unknowable universe, where we all know and fear that we all have to die some-day.

However - Hitler and Stalin were completely wrong - love is more powerful than hate.

More later...

21 September 2015.

By heck..., Mien Kampf is tediously repetitive. Its no wonder that Hitler had to force Germans to read it by, one powerful tactic he used, replacing all Bibles with Mien Kampf. William Shirer reports that any German home found to not have a copy, was immediately suspected of anti-Nazi sympathies and carted off to prison or worse.

His raving rhetoric shouts ever more loudly against the Jews (before he gained power) and more circumspectly (until he gained power) against most groups in Europe, except of course The Master Race, the true Germans. He criticizes the largely peaceful German people for their temerity - but never falters in his demented aim of elevating them to their true rank - as natural masters of the Earth. All other races are inferior and are to be subjugated, enslaved or eradicated by extreme, persistent and determined violence. He insists that once the slaughter starts, it must be continued until every single enemy is dead; otherwise "they" will arise with greater strength and exact their revenge. In this regard, he is as mad as the Old Testament God "...Kill all the men, all the women, all the children, all the beasts of the field, etc..." Hitler was right however; our parents generation did rise up and take revenge on him and his kind.

What keeps me slogging through the blaring, trumpeting, insistent text is the knowledge that these are the words of a wholly evil unredeemed unrepentant mass slaughterer - of which there have been very few so well recorded in modern history. His ideas only make sense in a completely insane world. Why oh why did civilized 20th Century people support this blathering monster? Spot the Loony. And it alerts me to try to Spot Today's Loony; there are always a few deranged people clambering up the greasy political poles, somewhere in the world.

Saturday, 12 September 2015

So far, so good - Jeremy.

With the UK Labour Party Conference behind him, mild mannered Superman, Party Leader, Jeremy Corbyn is frightening the pants off traditional, warring creatures of habit, political journalists, commentators and opponents - who seem incapable of understanding or of believing his message of new, non-combative, non-personal-insult, intelligent-debate politics. Maybe they'll catch on and catch up in a week or so after they overcome their confusion. In the meantime, Jeremy is carrying all before him. He is changing and redefining the political landscape. Perhaps the rest will have to follow - on both sides of the Atlantic.

To stay "in the frame" and hold the party leadership - and re-shape the next general election, I think that he will have to rise above his ingrained habits to embrace the majority's Love of Country and all the symbols and institutions that go along with it - and he will have to rise to the Defence of the Realm (or US "defense"). I'm a thinking, left-leaning, floating voter who agrees with much of Corbyn's agenda and I look forward to his coming Era of Intelligent Cooperation - but I do not want President Blair or President Cameron to replace HM Queen - and I do want maximum protection against crazed, stone-age, knuckle dragging Jihadists and all other international loonies who would take over our country, before imposing Slavery, Monetarism or Sharia Law and beheading all opponents and sinners.

PS - Like Jeremy, I think that God save the Queen is a pedestrian and crass National Anthem, with clumsy words and an awful tune - and I'm sure the Royal Family must be sick and tired of it and agree with me. It should be replaced by Elgar's Land of Hope of Glory - Now ! there's a great piece of nationalistic patriotic music we can all belt out with pride and mash the words at full volume.

16 Sept 2015. Oh Dear ! Oh Dear ! Oh Dear ! If reports that Jeremy won't join his fellow countrymen in singing The National Anthem, at The Battle of Britain memorial day, are accurate - then the old silly-billy goat is finished. I have just written about orphaned Hitler's permanent arrested development aged 14 triggering his fairy-tale belief in Aryan and Teutonic superiority - and his life-long hatred of all non-Germans, all religions, all Royals etc - Jeremy may also be stuck in his own egotistical teenage angst. If so, his 300 or so past rebellions against his own party would simply be an immature reaction against all and any authority. If he can't grow up and take authority, and join the other 63 million Britons who he might lead - he can never be an authority in this nation. Can a sixty-six year old gain self-knowledge and make an instant change deep in his childish psyche, in a week? It is highly unlikely; unless Mild Mannered Jeremy Corbyn really does have an alter-ego matching that of Mild Mannered Bruce Kent - who quick changes into - SUPERMAN ! Of course, today's news reports about Jeremy's petulant querulous behavior may be false rumors spread by his many, many enemies. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for a month. But the signs are not good. Come on Jeremy, you have inspired the young and the oppressed - don't shoot yourself in both feet - GROW UP !

66 year old Jeremy Corbyn MP, one of the longest serving members of Parliament, today won The Labour Party election to be their new leader; following the ignominious failure and resignation of Ed Miliband in the May 2015 General Election; won by the present Conservative incumbent, Prime Minister David Cameron.

Jeremy Corbyn of Islington London - urban cyclist, bearded, sock and sandal wearing, pacifist, vegetarian, teetotal, lifelong socialist - confounded all political experts and all his colleagues, winning 60% of the votes of the recently doubled Labour Party Membership - now about 500,000 people.

I think he heralds a major watershed in British and US politics (stand up Mr Bernie Sanders), bringing to an end the conspiracy of the screwy free markets and bonkers monetarist economic era, dating from Thatcher and Reagan - whether or not he goes on to win an election and form a government.

MY DIVERGENCE FROM CORBYN'S ALLEGED POLICIES: (1) Defense - I would never want the UK to return to the barmy, purblind, defenseless state we were in as Hitler rose to power and secretly armed Germany. "Chamberlain's 1938 Peace for our Time". Until we have settled, reliable, sane World Government, there will always be another Hitler - another self-professed leader of some maniacal mythical or religious self-defined super-race waiting to rise to power, intent on slaughtering or enslaving all those who don't see "The Truth". HITLER - MIEN KAMPF - ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

I want Britain, and me, to always have the power to stop marauding, primitive lunatics - such as Islamic State - with overwhelming, modern counter-force. (2) Allies - Our historic alliances exist for very good reasons, which young Mr Corbyn may not know. To ensure our peace and our security we urgently need allies - North America, The Commonwealth, the EU and, again harking back to World War Two I would like to see our old, undefeated ally Russia on our side. We must do all we can to keep NATO strong and to keep an influential position in The European Union. (3) President Blair - We have the most respected head of state in the world - Queen Elizabeth II. We have invested hundreds of years and millions of volts of political thinking power to create our good working relationship between our parliamentary democracy and The Royal Family (our most powerful draw for immense sums of tourist income). Let's not shoot ourselves in both feet, to experiment with some other constitution; if it works don't fix it! Apart from these three points, Mr Corbyn - get on with your agenda.

The huge swell of popular support for Corbyn from disenfranchised young and old alike at last, after 35 long, mean years, gives a voice to the suppressed and long conned ordinary voter, worker and citizen, He has broken the media-money-cartel gag of total silence about the extreme inequality of rewards, capital and hope. He shows that The Emperor Has no Clothes - he has called their bluff.

Corbyn also vows to regularly consult his 500,000 members on policies - now possible due to advances in mass communications. We are witnessing the beginning of the end of gangster politics, insatiable greed and blindfolded electorates - and the start of the beginning of referendum politics.

Stand by for violent reactions from the deeply embedded, seriously wealthy, seriously powerful incumbents and their vast right-bent global media. With about $32 trillion buried in 72 tax-havens around the world - the supposed "legal" owners will die rather than share or pay tax. $32 trillion is enough to pay off every deficit in the world. It is a hell of a lot of hidden treasure.

We are necessarily headed for the era of intelligent-cooperation, Strictly Come Voting and World Government. The youth of the world has at last opened their compliant, somnolent ears, eyes and minds and joined in - and they will sweep us forward to the miracles yet to be wrought by the Electronic Revolution. Mild Mannered Jeremy Corbyn has awakened them - Beware ! don't let him into a quick-change telephone booth.

Dead or Alive Jeremy Corbyn is in the vanguard of and has pointed the way to these historic changes.

***********

LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN - 4 Sept 2015.

Tom Clark is right to tackle the
stampeding herd instinct of 55 “mainstream” economists who rail in the FT
against Jeremy Corbyn’s ideas on top down or bottom up QE, Quantitative Easing.
(Corbynomics feels subversive, but maybe not for long – Guardian 4 Sept 15).
The 2008/09 £1.2 trillion crash, £55,000 per UK household, has been falsely and
illogically blamed by City and Wall Street PR on poor sub-prime mortgage
defaulters, not on rich feckless gambling bankers and illicit back-to-back
capital flows to tax-havens (lose it in London – make it in Liechtenstein).
Globally, the $32
trillion of illicit frozen tax-haven assets soared in the 2008-10
“collapse” by an immense $3 trillion, forcing austerity on OECD countries and
bankrupting Greece. American and European and now Chinese QE policies are
necessarily replacing a part of that $3 trillion. The ever growing transactions
in the real-economy have to be matched by liquidity in the money-economy.
Corbyn is correct; QE now needs to be bottom up - and all tax-haven assets must
be repatriated to repair liquidity. Corbynomics QE gets my vote.

By coincidence, the Guardian today features the type of large
solar power station I’m talking about – coming on line in Morocco now.

The far larger German plans will/would power all Europe and
Africa. Add desert wind-power (seeCaltech’s
latest close packed mini-towers – making 10 times the energy) and
power storage - via the old trick of pumping water uphill during excess output
(from solar or wind, which also blows at night) – and an area such as the
uninhabited Qattari depression, flooded with 1,000 km of coastline will become
very wealthy – making living space for Arab-Israeli families to enjoy in peace.

Does Israel do business with Egypt?

Noel

**********

Noel wrote: Yes – Depressing and implacable. How might things change? There
are 6 M Jews and 6 M Arabs in Israel Palestine – with 372 people per sq km (398
in England). Growing daily. No wonder there is immense stress.

Comfortable middle-class families don’t wage war: As World
Dictator I would have the World Bank develop a large tract of the uninhabited
Sahara – for family living, and there establish a major high-tech energy
industry to make it one of the wealthiest regions on Earth. ( Specialist
economies do function well – in 1999 Iceland was the 3rd wealthiest
global community; earning 85% from fishing.) Buy this derelict Qattari region from
Egypt. First lovely homes and first great jobs will be offered to emigrant Arab-Israelis
who each personally must sign a Mutual Tolerance Pact.

Germany has a plan for massive solar farms in
the Sahara to make all the energy the EU needs. But that plan requires peace.
Aim to reduce the Israel-Palestine population density to 50% or 33%. And
educate, educate, educate – and educate.

Do something – Not do nothing – to change the game.

Shalom - Noel

*********

As of 2014, Israeli and Palestinian statistics for the
overall numbers of Jews and Arabs in the area west of the Jordan, inclusive of
Israel and thePalestinian territories, are similar and
suggest a rough parity in the two populations. Palestinian statistics estimate
6.08 million Palestinians for that area, while Israel's Central Bureau of
Statistics estimates 6,218,000 Jews living in sovereign Israel. Gaza is
estimated by theIsraeli Defense Forces(IDF) to have 1.7 million, and the
West Bank 2.754 million Palestinians, while Israel proper has 1,719,000 Arab
citizens.[53]According to Israel's Central Bureau of
Statistics, as of May 2006, of Israel's 7 million people, 77% wereJews, 18.5%Arabs, and 4.3%
"others".[54]Among Jews, 68% wereSabras(Israeli-born), mostly second- or
third-generation Israelis, and the rest areolim – 22% from Europe and the Americas, and 10% from
Asia and Africa, including theArab
countries.[55]

World Bank - Population density (people per
sq. km) in Israel

Population
density (people per sq. km) in Israel was last measured at 372.43 in 2013

TELEGRAPH - In 2008 the average number of people per
square kilometre in Britain was 253, rising to 395 in England.

*******

Nick originated this topic - he wrote:

'Morning
gents,

I
found this rather depressing article today, and thought I would share it with
you.

After
I read it, and this confirms many other articles and thoughts recently, it
makes me more determined that we need to get together with a good film and good
bottle of wine.

How
are you fixed next week? Any evening except Wednesday for me. Or, the week
after? But not later!

For the kind attention of Philip
Hammond, UK Secretary of State, Tony Blair and David Miliband.

GREEN SAHARA FOR MILLIONS OF SYRIAN AND OTHER
REFUGEES.

Europe is crowded with 200-300
people per sq km, and is politically complex. I suggest the greening and
hi-tech commercial wealth development of large areas of the Sahara Desert
starting with the uninhabited 19,000 sq km Qattari depression in Egypt – just
50 miles inland from The Mediterranean and an average 60 metres below see
level.

I have no idea how governments
might be persuaded, but hope that you gentlemen know how to form an effective,
immediate, international joint-venture..

In civil engineering terms it is
relatively easy to dig a rough wide canal, to flood the depression. The
Bamforth Family (JCB Cheshire) could do it in a short time (The navigable
Manchester Ship Canal was dug by hand). The sea-inlet-channel could be roughly
dug and made navigable later. This is a 100 year old proposal. The 1,000 km new
inland seashore could house the current German plan for massive solar power
plants to feed the whole of Europe. From the first spade-full of earth or sand,
jobs and commerce would be created – to attract refugee families. This
high-tech, inland sea will become one of the wealthiest global communities.

There are several such huge dust
bowl depressions in the Sahara; which could be connected to the oceans.

GLOBAL WARMING - Flooding
these depressions will provide some temporary relief to the sea level rise that
President Obama realistically fears. And greening the desert might help to
absorb significant amounts of global warming gases.ALASKA MELTDOWN - OBAMA

Here is the basic concept. Can you
political experts bring about the cooperation required to quickly turn this old
idea into homes, lives and futures for the 5 million or so refugees.?

Friday, 4 September 2015

"Hi Noel! I was walking in the Parks this morning and ran
into people who were raving about the disasters that taking in immigrants will
have upon poor, benighted UK communities. I bit my tongue and did not rant
back! I guess I was just too surprised by the elderly couple who had clearly
lived through World War II and all that followed and sounded more scared and
confused than evil. However, I got home and opened by computer and found that
the BBC news site was reporting that :

“ a little earlier, Hungary's parliament “passed a
series of new laws as part of a crackdown on illegal immigrants, meaning:

•It will be a criminal offence to cross
or damage the fence being constructed along the border with Serbia

•Illegal border crossing will be
punishable by up to three years in prison

•It will be possible to submit asylum
requests at border crossing points”

Earlier, Prime Minister Viktor Orban told public
radio:

"Now we talk about hundreds of thousands [of
migrants] but next year we will talk about millions and there is no end to
this. All of a sudden we will see that we are in a minority in our own
continent."

(I am feeling like quoting my grandmother whenever I
hear the name Viktor Orban. When I was a toddler, whenever she heard the name
Stalin she would cry: Stalin! Stalin? I spit upon his name!)

So, Orban
predicts we will be a minority in our own continent. What we is that? White
people? Christians? Hungarians? Really???? We will be overrun? Gawd, it
sounds worse than the World Jewish Conspiracy, all these greedy Muslims
besieging poor helpless Europe.

Syrian Refugees walking from
Hungary to Austria.

A member of UKIP named Peter Bucklitsch,
may this name too -- more spitting
required -- live in the books of infamy for all of his twenty minutes of fame,
did today explain that the children who died in the Mediterranean recently were
dead because of their parents being greedy for the good life of Europe instead
of staying where they belonged in the war zone that was their home and
Calvinistic fate and where they were probably deserving potential victims of
genocidal fundamentalist co-religionists. And if you cannot credit it.

So should
we fear being overrun by a hostile and Triffid-like wave of aliens, people
whose skins and cultures and religions are Other? (And what happened to the
French Declaration of the Rights of Man, the separation of Church and State,
and the rights of people to worship as they wished as long as there was a
secular rule of law?)

What is
the total population of Europe? What if the EU actually came up (about 3 years
late) with a policy that offered homes to refugees (and migrants?) based on
fair distribution throughout Europe? What if someone spoke to Putin about
taking in a few people to populate some of the empty areas of Russia that could
use a bit of settlement and exploitation? What if the UN finally persuaded its
delegates to have a debate about giving homes to refugees according to a fair
world-wide system and also that reflected all the fine words and resolutions
that were passed after WWII? What if Canada, or Australia, which have
lots of open spaces that could use pioneers to settle them still, actually
opened themselves up to helping out in a major way? What then? Would it really
mean that all of a sudden everyone will be a minority in their own continent?
(Like the Native American Indians after about 1600?)

World War Two - Undesirable Aliens

And do
the natives of Europe (how many generations a native of the country you live
in, I wonder?) really think that all that is going to happen is that there will
be a huge influx of people living forever off the different national benefit
systems? In the UK the right wing press is promoting the idea that the benefit
cheats are destroying the fragile economy that was originally devastated by
Labour incompetence. (More about who was responsible for the economic crisis of
2008 later from me and elsewhere from Noel Hodson! It’s really quite important
to understand that and get it right.)

Actually,
the statistics for how much benefit cheats cost the government of the UK is
something in the range of 0.7% of the total money spent on benefits; and most
of the money (maybe around 50%) is going to landlords of the private sector –
David Cameron and George Osborne’s Holy Grail sector – whose tax fiddles and
outrageously over-bloated rents are supposed to generate a trickle down effect
to those whose benefits have recently been capped – no matter what the
exceptional circumstances – or who are being penalized for having an extra room
in their house.

One thing
is sure, this is not the era of joined up thinking! So are we to assume that
none of the refugees will be professional people, skilled people, trained
people? That none will want to re-educate themselves, gain new qualifications,
learn the language of the country they end up in or build a new life? That none
will be able to take on jobs or might be computer literate and be helpful to
companies that are trying to exploit the new economy IT has generated?

In other
words, we cannot expect a refugee to take a job, earn money, pay taxes, pay
rent, buy food, buy clothes or in any way contribute to the economy of his or
her new homeland? Or that over, say, three generations, there will be some
amount of culturisation and maybe also some romance and new families started?

Listen,
guys, this will come as a shock to you but they have worked out the genome and
it seems that Hitler and other racists were wrong and that the more remote the
gene pools are that mix, the more it reinvigorates the local human stock! But
it’s so much less scary to be inbred and deal with the consequences of that,
clearly, I reckon.

And who
now has a world wide platform for this nonsense? Victor Orban, the Prime
Minister of Hungary, that’s who. With no sense of history, and a leader who has
all the hallmarks about him of hoping to be a successful a fascist, racist
non-visionary thug running a police state, we have to wish the Hungarians good
luck in waking up to what they are doing to themselves by voting this man into
power, let alone what they are doing through him to the desperate refugees who
have foolishly turned up because of geographic necessity to try to get across
the Hungarian country and get the hell out of there as fast as they can to
somewhere civilized like Germany. (At the moment, I like Angela Merkel.)

And what
would the court of human rights in the Hague (or is it Brussels that should
speak out?) have to say about what I assume is the illegality of selling
someone a ticket to Germany from Budapest and then refusing to let the train
take him or her to Berlin after they
have bought the ticket with what is often their last bit of money? (Come to
that, who is letting the thousands of refugees camped in or near the railway
station use the toilets, for which you have to pay; or providing some food and
water for the dehydrated and uncomfortable families?) Isn't the selling of the
ticket a contract that the Hungarian government and police have now broken? I
wonder if someone should sue them?!?! just
to make a point ...?

Finally,
I doubt any arguments will convince the unconvinceable, prejudiced and
ultimately truly frightened people who see the refugees as a threat to their
culture and way of life and who should be kept out therefore. It was ever thus!
It’s fear of the other. It’s also a shocking lack of optimism about the
adaptability of the human being to changes of circumstance.

And it
is, above all, a huge failure to recognize what is going on as a moral issue
and a test of whether we really have learned that lesson: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. "

The European Union has 550M people. In addition to the EU, Russia is the
largest country on Earth with immense tracts of uninhabited land – with 9
people per sq km. The highest estimate I have heard of migrant/refugees heading
for Europe is 1M or 1/550th of present populations. With
Goodwill and good planning – the one million could easily be decently housed, fed and
integrated.

I may have told you our true story of Iceland after/during the Vietnam
War? They gave welcome, homes, money, new business starts, school places etc to
20 Vietnamese refugee families. Within 3 years all 20 families had gone. The
puzzled, kindly Icelanders told us this over tea in a Reykjavik café, dark
outside at 3pm, with horizontal freezing rain driving past the window; a nice
breezy day for natives – a terrible cold, dismal, soul destroying day for
Vietnamese. Not all migrants will stay in Europe – many prefer the Middle East.

Thursday, 3 September 2015

To date my Ranting Society has been limited to just two members, an irate American and myself. I think this article, from Mel, has earned him an Honorary Membership of The Ranting Society. As another friend is fond of saying "Next - He'll be stopping people in the street..." Of course, everything that Mel says ought to be seriously considered by all western policy makers. Of course, no politician is intelligent enough to engage with it. - Noel - 3 SEP 2015

Are we repeating the 1930's?

Mel writes: "Should we not be delighted and feel a sense of
comfortable deja-vu to see that an Eastern European nation like Hungary remains
consistent and loyal to its bigoted roots? And that so many people do not
consider that something new is happening which needs to be thought through and
dealt with in ways that differ from 1930's isolationism?

I always felt that I could not believe how stupid and
blind some people were in the 1930s and in appeasing Hitler, keeping out
refugees, and thinking you could solve economic problems in a nation by cutting
spending and insisting that there should be less and less government
intervention. Now I can witness it all and see that they really were that dumb;
and that those who do not pay attention to their history really are condemned
to repeat it (Voltaire), only not so exactly as to make them see.

I am also waiting for some Christian leaders in these
nominally Christian countries actually to speak out forcefully about the Good
Samaritan and such parables as that; and that old one about Do Unto Others?
Does no one watch the old newsreels any more to see millions of people roaming
the highways of Europe after WWII or remember how things were dealt with in
Displaced Persons camps? And, of course, all this would cost money, so we had
better not go there! Imagine if we had to postpone or slow down some of the
replacement of our own weapons of Mass Destruction like Trident!!! Or not build
a fast train to Birmingham for an extra few years?

So the failure of the EU and multi-national projects
looks much more likely, these days, not because of political wrangling per se
or questions about economic subsidies and the courts, etc; but because 27
countries seem unable to sit down and work out a sane, logical policy for
dealing with millions of people who are displaced.

And why are they displaced? Personally, I think we should go back beyond Tony Blair and George W Bush to the first Iraq War when
not only did Colin Powell insist that that was the time to pursue Saddam and
finish his regime, but when the USA in particular encouraged revolts and
revolutions against Saddam in Iraq itself with promises of help should the
people rise up, and then when people rose up they simply reneged on their
promises. And they wonder why no one trusts them? Saddam had a wonderful time
murdering his opposition and destroying whole sections of his country where
they were hiding throughout the 1990s once the USA made it clear they would not
pursue him any further. he didn't need weapons of mass destruction; he was able
to achieve all he wanted with a combination of quite ordinary weapons, secret
policing, a sycophantic military and the non-interference of the West,
especially the USA.

The whole thing is a mess that we had a lot to do with
making; and now we will not even help those who are fleeing or approach the
problem that has been staring everyone in the face for about five years in any
concerted, sane way.

But apart from the whole European approach, what about
the UN? What about countries like Canada, which has plenty of room and plenty of
wealth and a tradition of helping refugees if they are white and European?

There was a guy on TV this morning explaining that the UK
had no requirement in international law to do a damned thing; and if they did,
then think of the money it would cost and how it would squeeze our benefits
system (as if it was not already squeezed)! And then there was our beloved
Prime Minister explaining that really we should be ignoring the refugees
because we had to go to the root of the problem, which was to sort out the mess
in Syria. I see -- so he thinks it will be cheaper and easier to escalate
another war in the Middle East than to take in, educate, acclimatise and find
hope for some refugees.

Freud was right. Civilization is a very thin veneer on
deep rooted barbarity and solipsism and it takes remarkably little to crack it
and have it fall away. And you would think that people might make a connection
to WWII and its aftermath and to all those newsreels and movies dealing with
the subject that we see on TV virtually every day. But they won't.

So what is Jeremy Corbyn saying about all this? And where
is the Archbishop of Canterbury or even the Chief Rabbi?

I am for watching a Judy Garland musical when I get back
from Canada. Or even Betty Grable. It has to be better than watching the news! - Mel

Please watch this 25 minute plea
by President Obama to save the planet from global warming. He analyses the
threat as real & immediate. Even so, I still think the scientific meltdown
forecasts he cites are ten times too slow and sea rises ten times too shallow.
Twenty years ago science forecast sea level rise as 2 mm per century – now
science says 2 metres per century (1,000 times faster) – I think its 20 metres
this century. Read my 2 novels (links below) & Move to Higher Ground. Do distribute this message - Noel

8) Music, film, theatre and art is
pretty much international. I think the Met Opera broadcasts live to hundreds of
cinemas in 50 or so nations.

9) Language – English is currently
the international language – and is so for all control of transport and travel.
Our desk computers will translate any language. Inconceivable in 1992.

These are just a few examples of
worldwide governance agencies and tools – I’m sure you can think of many more;
all imperfect but globally very functional nevertheless.

10) To build and bind world
government needs a global Common Enemy – and we have one in Global Warming.
Whatever you think of Obama, his 25 minute speech last week, warning Alaska and
the world about Arctic meltdown, wasn’t just his rhetoric; he cited carefully
considered White House approved data. It is COMING NOW – is a common
enemy, a Real & Present Danger, as deep voiced American documentary
presenters put it; which is already creating, in Alaska, the first of about 5
billion homeless refugees who live on the coastal margins (London, New York,
Tokyo, Hong Kong, Cairo etc). The global community has no option but to deal
with it globally. The next meeting is in Paris in December. This planetary
crisis will lead to global action; lets hope the actions bring Intelligent
Cooperation, not WW3. Maybe this month’s minor refugee crisis is a practice
run.

Unfortunately, the world seems to
be governed by self serving non-entities. Can you name an inspiring, competent
dynamic world or national leader?

The UN has proved to be useless
as a peacekeeping body.

All major international bodies
have shown themselves to be corrupt or inefficient or both. Witness UN, FIFA,
World athletics, cycling, not to mention the EU etc etc.

So, where does does this leave us
with a possible world government?

Sorry, Noel, world government is
a nice idea, but is utterly impractical.

I hate to be too depressing, but,
in terms of governance, we are in trouble!

Maybe Corbyn will jolt us into
some action. Cameron needs to wake up and provide some real leadership - but
don't hold your breath on this.

Obama, I am afraid, is a lost
cause.

Nick

*********

On 18 Sep 2015, at 10:37, To Nick - Excellent
but terrifying points. We need a massive effective UN police force - now. I have
just responded to John who is worried about worldwide banking
collapse and the withdrawal of depositor guarantees (below).

The
world needs world government. (Under President for Life Corbyn?). We seriously
need world government – and very soon. - Noel

*********

MONEY & BANKS

Hi John

What I mean is that governments
should globally monitor all banks' and financial companies' balance sheets on a
daily basis on behalf of all customers and the financial world. 99% of banks
use large IBM machines - a "daily balance sheets cross-added
spreadsheet" would be easy arithmetic for these computers. There is no
other way that We The People can have the faintest clue about the health of
financial institutions. If we are to risk our savings - we need this simple
bookkeeping information. This, the opaque and corrupt Money-Economy, is a
global problem.

Noel

************

To Noel from John - Bank deposit guarantees

I think the problem is that it
does have government rules, and those are the new bail-in laws. On that basis
government is the problem.

***************

Re - eurozone races to
restructure Greek banks

John

Thanks for this FT article.

I appreciate that banks may be
allowed to go bust and that depositors may lose their savings. I don't know
what the ordinary person can do. Even top bankers don't understand their own
balance sheets.

A future answer may be for a
global daily report of all financial institutions - it is possible in our
computer age. Many of the bookkeeping cross added rows would total zero; one
banks deposits being another's borrowing.

It needs government rules - Noel

*********************

NUCLEAR WAR

Subject: Iran nuclear deal.

Date:17 September 2015

To:"Nichola BLACKWOOD MP,

Dear Nicola (I hope you don't
mind me calling you Nicola),

I am afraid that I am not in the
least reassured by your note.

I am reluctant to overfill your
postbag with my ramblings, but I will just make a few brief points, based on
some of your remarks.

1."to keep Iran from
developing a nuclear weapon". At the absolute best it only delays the bomb
for about 10-15 years. This means other countries, especially Saudi Arabia will
run for nuclear immediately in order to catch up. A new nuclear arms race.

2." Iran
will grant the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access". This is
wrong. First, The White House has been at pains to say the Iran/IAEA agreement
is confidential. So, do we really know what it contains?

Second, from what
we do know, Iranian military bases are off limits to Inspectors, and
inspections will be carried by …… Iranians!

3."the
international community will lift some of its sanctions on Iran".
Unfortunately, restrictions will be lifted without the ability to
"snap" them back in place. Russia, China and the EU can't wait to do
business with Iran and open the floodgates to billions of dollars flowing to
Iran. What will Iran do with all this money? The mullahs and terrorists around
the world are already laughing.

4."this
agreement will herald a step-change in Iran's relations with its neighbours and
the international community". Have you noticed any change at all in Iran's
attitude towards the West, towards the US, towards the UK, towards Israel. If
anything the rhetoric is getting worse. Why do you think it will suddenly
change, just because we have caved in on this agreement? To believe so is
wishful thinking. As a wise man once said, "If a man says often enough
that he is going to kill you, you had better take him seriously".

5.On
the human rights issue, there has not been a single concession - frankly nor is
there likely to be - or release of US prisoners. What incentive does Iran have
to change? We have removed all possible sanctions, and Iran knows there is no
danger of military intervention on this or on any other issue.

Sorry, but I cannot
disagree more with you and the PM on this issue. I am surprised that there has
not been a greater debate.

Kind regards

Nick

**************

On 17 Sep 2015, Nicola Blackwood MP wrote:

Dear ***Nick***

Thank you for contacting me about the
historic deal on the Iranian nuclear programme. Please accept my apologies for
the long delay in my reply, which has been caused by both the parliamentary
recess and an extended period after the election when I was very understaffed.
Thank you for your patience in awaiting a response ─ we are doing our best to
resume normal service.

I understand your concerns. However, please
note that the international community has delivered a potentially historic deal
with Iran following years of persistent diplomacy and tough sanctions. I
believe that this is in our country's interests and secures the UK's
fundamental aim − to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

Under the agreement, Iran will grant the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to verify Iran’s adherence to
the restrictions placed on its nuclear programme, giving the international
community confidence that the programme is, and will remain, peaceful. In
return, once Iran has taken key steps to introduce these restrictions, the
international community will lift some of its sanctions on Iran, delivering
significant economic and financial benefits for the country. Having reached this
important agreement, our focus must now be on ensuring its swift and full
implementation to make sure that a nuclear weapon remains beyond Iran's reach.

The removal, over time, of economic and
financial sanctions represents a huge opportunity for Iranians to make positive
decisions about their country's future and its role in the region and the wider
world. I have discussed this with Ministers and their view is that this
agreement will herald a step-change in Iran's relations with its neighbours and
the international community. In my view, the thawing of diplomatic relations is
hugely important because it presents the UK with an opportunity to develop
longer-term cooperation with Iran. The UK Government will continue to work
closely with its international partners to encourage Iran to play a transparent
and constructive role in regional affairs, particularly in the struggle against
violent Islamist extremism.

Please note that whilst the human rights
situation in Iran remains deeply concerning, and the Iranian Government's
reaction to international criticism of its human rights record continues to be
dismissive, the UK Government has been unwavering in its efforts to hold Iran
to account for its abuses, having designated over 80 Iranians responsible for human
rights violations under EU sanctions. It has helped establish a UN Special
Rapporteur on Iran human rights and successfully lobbied for the renewal of his
mandate at the UN Human Rights Council. I hope that the UK will remain a strong
voice in seeking improvements. I must emphasise that we can achieve more in
this regard if we develop working diplomatic relations with Iran, which
is precisely what this deal will ensure.

Thank you again for taking the time to
contact me and I hope you are reassured by my response.

Sorry to add to your email baggage, but I
want to know why, and how, David Cameron can support Obama\'s proposed nuclear
deal with Iran.

At its very best, the deal is only for 10
years, after which Iran presses ahead with the bomb. In the meantime, we know
how Iran lies about its nuclear development, and that the inspections regime
will easily be frustrated. Iran\'s coffers will be hugely inflated by umpteen
billions in a relatively short period of time. The Iranians are openly mocking
the deal and Obama. They continue to threaten the West, the US and Israel. Why
does nobody take their threats seriously?

Is the Government supporting the deal
because they see short term trading and economic benefits for UK and EU? Can Mr
Cameron really be sure the deal is the best for us all?